The 38th Minimalen Short Film Festival

TRUTH, DIVERSITY AND SHORT FILM

The fragility of truth is today impossible to ignore. In a public sphere shaped by polarization, disinformation, and the strategic use of half-truths, both political debate and our shared understanding of reality are being challenged. Social and visual media play a decisive role in how narratives are formed, circulated, and manipulated.

In this landscape, film becomes an important space for reflection — not as a guarantor of a single truth, but as a tool for examining nuance, perspectives, and power structures in the representation of reality. Questioning what we see is essential. This year’s mockumentary focus and documentary programme explore, in different ways, the relationship between fact and fiction, and how images can both reveal and distort reality. Here, the auteur Suzannah Mirghani expands our horizon of understanding with her perspective from the Global South.

The competition programmes present films that do not merely reflect the world as it is, but actively challenge established narrative forms and visual conventions. Aesthetic formal experimentation and narrative risk-taking are central, demonstrating how the short format continues to function as a space for innovation. This undoubtedly demands greater curiosity and openness from the spectator than mainstream cinema, but the reward is all the greater.

The retrospectives dedicated to David Lynch and Marianne Heske present two vastly different yet kindred artistic practices, in which the short film serves as a laboratory for dream, idea, and experiment — bridging the gap between the cinema and the gallery. This historical perspective is further deepened through the Short Film Studies Symposium and the classics by Vigo and Resnais — solid contributions to a canon.

The festival also embraces movement, body, and rhythm in the dance film programmes; genre play and intensity in the horror programme; and curiosity and fearless storytelling through the children’s and youth programmes. The industry events, the student competition, and the One-Minute-Film programme all point forward — toward new voices and refreshing ways of making and experiencing film.

In Norwegian film production and festival funding, diversity is a major buzzword. Minimalen’s contribution is to each year bring together a broad spectrum of expressions and perspectives that demonstrate the unique strength of the short film. In this way, we seek to present a holistic picture of short film as a pluralistic art form: historically grounded, attuned to the present, and in constant evolution.

What is true ultimately remains for each of us to determine — but one thing is certain: you are warmly invited to join in!

Per Fikse, Festival Director